


A Split Lip and Torn Up Knees

by heavyweather



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Bullying, Gymnastics, High School, M/M, Not Beta Read, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Tension, Wrestling, ethan gets beat up behind the school, helps him tho, lots of staring, mark finds him and is Mad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28766511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavyweather/pseuds/heavyweather
Summary: as he walked, he thought about what homework he needed to do, where the hell his black socks for marching were, if he needed gas for the ride home. it was quiet outside, only the occasional rustling of the trees and the distant sounds of cars headed out if the parking lot could be heard.the sound of someone sniffling was very much out of the ordinary.
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 9
Kudos: 161





	A Split Lip and Torn Up Knees

**Author's Note:**

> brain go brr for this, also please please please tell me if you like this one cause it also goes with a whole universe where they both are in high school 
> 
> p.s. theres a story where they go to prom in their unus annus suits and i need to write it before my friend yells at me
> 
> p.p.s. i might have Another au in the works??

its really fucking hot out. the sun hadn't gone behind the clouds in probably a week, if you asked mark. just sun sun sun, for a while now. 

opening the doors of the auxiliary gym, he expected a nice breeze, maybe at least a break from the obnoxious humidity of the large room. but no, the sun was unrelenting, beating down in the concrete below his feet and making him sweat even more than being pressed into the mat by their heaviest team member.

the rest of the team was trickling out. one by one trudging out of the gym with heavy bags and slow feet, some give him a clap on the back for a good practice. others just passed by, music blaring from headphones and eyes locked on phones. it was a miracle none of them tripped on their way to the parking lot. 

mark had parked on the other side of the school, having arrived late that morning. so, while everyone else was headed one way, he turned the other way and started walking.

it was the end of the week, a thursday. wrestling practice was monday, wednesday, thursday; saturday normally had a meet in the morning, leaving sunday free. tuesday was tutoring in the afternoon, friday was always booked with a football game. there was hardly any time to just relax, as much as mark enjoyed being busy, the quiet moments like a five-minute walk to his car was always appreciated. 

it felt good to just, be, before there was another thing to do. 

as he walked, he thought about what homework he needed to do, where the hell his black socks for marching were, if he needed gas for the ride home. it was quiet outside, only the occasional rustling of the trees and the distant sounds of cars headed out if the parking lot could be heard. 

the sound of someone sniffling was very much out of the ordinary.

it wasn't completely unheard of to see other students out behind the school, either taking turns on a blunt or just talking in small groups about who knows what. but when mark turned around, the sight of ethan huddled in the corner by one of the doors was very unusual. 

"ethan?"

the boy's head snapped up quickly, his eyes wide as they made eye contact. ethan quickly tried to school his expression, shaky hands came up to wipe at his eyes as he looked anywhere but marks face. 

"oh, hi mark," he glanced at mark's duffle bag. "how was wrestling practice?" 

mark didn't respond, just quickly walked over to the boy and knelt down. his bag slipped from his shoulder as he took in ethan's appearance. 

his knees were scraped up, beads of blood peeking out of pink skin, small rocks embedded in between scratches. his hands were held close to his chest, his fingertips played with the material of his tank top. hints of purple and green could be seen on his shoulder, over his collar bone.

his face was the worst. 

ethan still refused to look at mark, head angled down at the ground, turned away. but mark could still see the deep red of his split lip and the flushed cheeks only made by tears. new ones sat on his eyelashes, threatening to spill over every time ethan blinked. 

"ethan," after taking in the boy's appearance, it was hard to sound anything but concerned. "what happened?"

"nothing happened." his eyes flickered to mark's face, but quickly returned to studying the ants carrying a pebble on the sidewalk. "i'm fine, mark." 

it just made mark frown, his eyebrows knitting together and his hands clenching at his side. ethan was most certainly not fine, definitely not okay. his lip kept bleeding, seeing as the boy was still playing with it between his teeth. his hands shook as he held in breaths. marks blood boiled while looking at the bruises on his shoulder, they were large, ugly, deep things, the tops of them spotted in broken blood vessels below the skin. something definitely happened. 

"you're not fine, you look like you got the shit beaten out of you." his voice had an edge to it, he knows it does. the anger is easier to hear when it does. mark doesn't like it when it slips out, only makes things more tense. "what happened?" 

it was ethan's turn to frown, mouth screwing up and hands clenching in his shirt. 

"i told you," they made eye contact again, it was like walls were being built behind ethan's eyes. mark's not used to that look. "nothing happened, mark."

there's a pause as they stare at each other, a standoff to see who would look away first. 

mark won. 

"i just fell," ethan's voice lost its hardness as he looked away. his hands released their grip on his shirt and skirted around the scrapes on his knees. they trembled as his fingertips flitted over the broken skin. "it's not a big deal."

the last part is mumbled, bearly there in the shade of the overhang above the door. it makes mark's chest tighten, clearly hearing the lie. 

he doesn't say anything at that, wants to see if ethan will give in and tell him anyway. ethan never likes silence, makes him on edge in the worst ways. maybe if he waits long enough, the answer he's looking for will tumble out of ethan's mouth without the boy even realizing it. 

they just sit there. staring. mark staring at ethan and ethan staring at his knees. after a bit, mark realizes ethan has his gymnastics bag next to him, tucked between his hip and the wall he's pressed into. he must have been headed to practice. the boy doesn't talk about it often, just a few off-handed comments about scheduling during their tutoring sessions. mark doesn't really know much else other than their tuesday meeting is always half an hour short because ethan has gymnastics practice across town.

mark looks back up at ethan's face. the kid's still staring at his knees, but his hand is by his shoulder, pressing lightly against the edge of a bruise. his face screwed up every time he touches a particularly tender place. 

"i don't want to talk about it." 

a sigh leaves mark's lips. he looks down at his watch, quarter till six. the locker room should still be open, they can slip in after the coaches leave. mark still has some first aid stuff in his locker from the last meet they had.

he stands, grabbing his duffle bag as he goes. mark holds out a hand to ethan, gesturing for him to take it. ethan just looks at it for a second, glances up at mark, then grabs his wrist. he’s hauled up onto his feet, his sneakers sliding against the concrete, making him stumble slightly into mark’s side. mark just catches his elbow, holding his bicep with his other hand. 

“i’m fine.” there's that lie again. mark lets out a sigh again and lightens his hold on the strap of his bag. he makes to walk towards the door, head down as he listens for the scrape of ethan's shoes against the ground.

“bullshit.” it’s mumbled as he pushes the door open. he doesn’t know what to say, his mind tells him to let it go and just help ethan, clean him up and be someone the boy can lean on. but his chest tells him to keep pressing the issue, to find out whoever did this to him and give them twice what they gave ethan. he doesn’t know which to listen to, so he just stays quiet, aware that his face is still screwed up, his eyebrows still together and his eyes glaring at the ground as he weaves into the locker room, ethan on his heels. 

ethan apparently has the same idea, as he stays quiet also. their shoes squeak on the freshly waxed gym floor, the sound bouncing off of the bleachers, the rafters hanging high above them. the locker room is warm, a couple of the showers are running, stragglers from the many practices this afternoon having stayed behind to freshen up. mark can hear the quiet melody of music from the showers as they pass. his locker is at the far end of the hall, tucked into the back of the small room, away from anyone else there. 

mark motions for ethan to sit when they arrive. he dumps his duffle bag on the ground as he puts in his combination. he hears the metal of the bench screech as ethan sits down, the thwomp of his bag landing on the ground. mark doesn’t have a lot of supplies, only a couple of bandaids and peroxide. he grabs what he has, along with a rag at the bottom of his locker and turns towards ethan once again. 

the kid’s bouncing his leg, thumbing at the edge of his shorts. his tongue keeps darting out to run over the cut in his lip. the action opens the cut again, a drip of blood trailing over the rest of his lip as his tongue runs over the skin. 

“stay here.” it’s whispered as he passes ethan, his fingers brush the boy's shoulder without the bruises. he really doesn’t know what to do with himself.

mark heads toward the sinks, the sound of the showers almost drown out his racing thoughts. almost. 

he’s confused, worried, angry, scared. he doesn’t know. all he can see is ethan’s bloody lip, the scapes on his knees, the way his hands tremble trying to hold onto his shirt. images of ethan against a wall, a fist in his gut, hands holding his shoulders up against the brick so they can aim at his face. a foot kicking his legs out, his body crumbling against the ground as another kick is delivered to his shoulder, pushing him onto his side. 

it makes him see white as he turns on the tap. it makes him clench his hand against the side of the sink, the small towel stuck under the flow of water. 

what happened out there, what happened to make someone feel the need to just absolutely pummel the boy into the ground? did ethan fight back? did he try to protect himself? or did he just take it, just let whoever it was just hit him over and over, wishing it was over quickly. 

he’s snapped out of his thoughts when the shower’s turned off, the quiet hitting him in the face is startling. he doesn’t acknowledge the person walking behind him, just rings out the rag, making sure it’s not dripping, and makes off towards ethan. 

he’s in the same place, tapping his leg and making his lip worse. he’s staring off into space, his eyes are cloudy, clearly stuck on a train of thought that’s not ideal. mark is slow as he sits down next to him, touches his arm softly. 

it still makes ethan jump, making him suck in a breath and blinking rapidly, startling him out of his head. 

“sorry.” ethan looks at him for a moment, then looks at the rag in his hand. “didn’t notice you sat down.”

“don’t apologize.” mark picks up the peroxide, opens the cap. he stands once again, but then kneels in front of ethan’s legs, one hand setting the bottle down next to his heel and the other moving the rag closer to the boy's cuts. “this might hurt a bit.”

ethan doesn’t say anything, but mark hears the hiss he makes as the rag touches his skin. the gray material slowly becomes red in some places, as he rubs it across the cuts and tries to clean the dirt out of the scapes. mark tries to be as gentle as possible, only giving feather-light touches, but the deeper cuts are hard to clean without just pressing the towel right on the open wound. 

after cleaning off most of the scapes, he takes the driest part of the towel and dabs at the outer edges of the cuts. 

“can you hand me that.” he motions for the big patch next to ethan's hand. it’s supposed to be for an elbow, but mark supposes that it would work for at least the biggest cuts on ethan's knees. ethan hands it to him and he tries to make sure to get as much broken skin covered as he can. 

one knee is more scraped up than the other, ethan having fallen on a rock probably, so the other knee has mostly stopped bleeding by now. the skin red around the dead skin, irritated from mark’s earlier ministrations. he gives them both a once over before standing up and moving beside ethan again. 

mark sets the rag down on the other side of him. trying to decide if he needs to put peroxide on ethan's lip or if he can just leave it. it’s still bleeding. before he can do anything, ethan speaks up.

“i was walking to the late bus.” mark looks up at his eyes, ethan’s are there waiting for him. “they were outside waiting.”

they. 

there was more than one. a group of them did this. it makes mark's eyes tighten, his fist resting on his thigh, trying to stay quiet so ethan can say what he needs to. 

“i didn’t realise they were there.” he lifts a hand to scratch at his eye. mark sees the small blooming bruise on his cheekbone, it makes him bite the inside of his cheek to force himself not to say something stupid. 

“you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want you.” his eyes are darting around ethan's face. looking at his eyes, the way the bruise curves around the corner of his eye and just barely touches his eyebrow. the still bleeding cut on his lip, there’s dried blood on his chin, crusting over on his jaw. the way the dried tears make his skin red, splotchy, irritated. he can’t believe this happened to him.

mark feels his nails dig into his palms as ethan looks down at his hands. mark didn’t notice before, but his palms are scaped as well. not bleeding, just deep red and torn skin. it feels like there’s needles in mark’s chest, his fingers twitch to reach out and touch ethan's wrist. to make sure he’s not in pain. 

instead, he blindly reaches for the rag. it’s still damp, small dots of blood across the material. ethan doesn’t say anything as mark brings it close to his face, just allows mark to turn his chin to face him and dab at the corner of his mouth. 

it’s weirdly intimate like this. holding the boy’s face in his hands, touching his skin so delicately, so mark won't hurt him any more than he already was. the air has shifted from a few minutes ago. it’s no longer tense, silence, fear of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing. mark kneeling in front of ethan didn’t have to look at him, didn’t have to see ethan looking directly at him. he didn’t have to see ethan staring at him out of the corner of his eyes while he dabbed at his skin. he just hoped his face wasn’t as red as he thought it was.

the blood on his lip came off easily, fresh and flowing. but mark had to rub a little harder at the dried blood on ethan's chin, moving his chin up with the thumb of the hand gripping his chin. the towel stroked across ethan's jaw, trying to get rid of any remnant of what happened outside. moving ethan's face this way and that, mark wiped away any dirt on his face, by his mouth, across his cheek, the streak on his forehead. 

one once over of his work and he released ethans chin, not even realizing that he was still holding it until he felt the now cold air of the locker room hit his fingertips. ethan was still staring, mark found it hard to believe that he ever stopped. 

they sit like that, the wet rag on mark's thigh, making his shorts damp. ethan looking so softly at mark, his hands together, picking at the skin around his nails. mark pointedly looking anywhere but ethan’s face. all of the showers have stopped, the air is becoming less and less humid as the minutes pass. it makes mark breathe easier, clearing his mind, his thoughts slowly becoming unstuck from each other. although, he’s still not sure what to say, what to do with his hands. 

he’s getting twitchy, too. ethan’s constant gaze is starting to set him on edge. maybe he’s the one with blood on his face. his eyes dart around for something to shift the boy’s attention to. something to make him stop staring at mark so intensely. 

his eyes flitted to ethan’s shoulder. ice. mark can get ice for him, it’ll give him something to do. for him to be helpful. he stands up abruptly, again startling ethan. hastily putting down the rag, he turns to look at ethan, putting his hands up.

“stay here.”

and he’s out of the room. out of the locker room entirely. he doesn’t know if the door will be open, the nurse had left a few hours ago. there’s almost no one in the hallways, too early in the year for the musical practice to have started and too late in the day for any tutoring sessions to still be happening. mark jogs through the cafeteria, briefly passing a janitor vacuuming a classroom, the open teachers lounge where someone was making coffee. 

he slows down significantly as he approaches the office, schooling his breath and running a hand through his hair. the secretary there just looks at him as he walks up to her desk, raising an eyebrow when he places his hand on the counter. 

“can i get some ice from the nurse's office?” he really hopes she doesn’t ask why. he doesn’t want to explain that it’s from this kid he tutors who he found beaten up outside of the gym that’s sitting in the locker room with a split lip and a bruised shoulder.

“sure sweaty,” she hands him a lanyard with a few keys on it. “use the one with the blue tag and make sure to lock the door when you leave.” 

mark just nods his head, takes the lanyard, and heads down the short hallway towards the door. 

it’s easy to zone out while grabbing a bag and opening the freezer. mark’s in here all the time for ice, either from wrestling injuries or the occasional mishap from marching band. having a tuba land on your head because a sophomore hadn’t memorized their steps was a hell of a story to tell the nurse.

he thinks about what has happened this afternoon. finding ethan outside, hurt, crying. the burning in his chest when he looked at the injuries the boy had. the way mark felt so fucking angry at realizing some jackass has done it, how his hands clenched at his sides every time ethan flinched at the touch of the rag or a weird movement his shoulder made. the way mark almost ripped off the sink in the locker room thinking about what had happened to ethan.

he doesn’t know what it means. what it means to feel so fucking mad while looking at someone to obviously undeserving of the harsh treatment ethan received. what it means when his chest clenches when ethan looks at him the way he did in the locker room. the way his fingers felt so bitterly cold after he stopped holding ethan's chin. the way silence with ethan isn’t necessarily bad, but it puts marks teeth on edge, knowing that it makes ethan uncomfortable. the way one look from ethan can make mark want to say anything the boy wants to hear. 

the trip back to the locker room is slow. the secretary was nice when he handed her the keys back, not asking why he suddenly looked so out of it, looking at his shoes as he left the room. 

the janitor was now in the cafeteria, moving chairs and putting up tables. mark stares at the table by the stairwell, the one he and ethan have their tutoring sessions. it makes him think of tuesday, the way ethan was laughing at something mark said, the way he smiled so big when he solved a problem right on the first try, the why he got so nervous when mark was checking over one of his homework assignments.

sometimes mark forgets that the kid exists outside of their tutoring sessions, that ethan probably has friends he hangs out with outside of school. that he's done gymnastics for a few years now. he forgets that the world is different for ethan than it is for mark. 

realizing that something this bad can happen to ethan, the ethan that eats his forgotten lunch after school and can talk marks ear off about computers, it's throwing mark for a loop. 

his thoughts are getting foggy again, by the time he gets back to the locker room. he can't hear anything, not even ethan tap tap tapping his foot against the tile floor. his locker is right by the hallway entrance, but when he steps into the room, ethan's not there. 

there's a sink running. 

ethans standing in front of one of the mirrors holding the dripping rag to his eye. he makes eye contact with mark through the mirror and then looks down at the sink again. he turns around as mark steps closer. 

"it started to throb, so i just," he lowers the rag from his eye and wrings it out over the sink. "i thought some cold water would help while you were gone." 

mark just nods, stands next to ethan as he reapplies the wet rag to his face. he supposes that would have been a good thing to mention, the way the bruise looked, ethan might have a bit of a black eye. 

he looks at ethan through the mirror again, he's trying to see what his lip looks like. the skin around the cut is red and a little swollen, his tongue pokes at it from the inside of his mouth, he must have gotten it caught on a tooth during a punch. the action does something to mark he can't quite place. 

the bag of ice is cold by his side, almost dripping onto the floor because of the condensation. thinking it might help, he set it on the side of the sink, opening the twist tie and taking out a few ice cubes. 

"hold out the rag." ethan gives him a strange look, but holds out the rag nonetheless. mark places the ice cubes in his hand and then twists the rest of the material of the rag around the cubes to act as a holder. "press that to your face and ill hold the rest to your shoulder."

ethan watches him through the mirror as he walks around to his other side. the light touch of mark's hand moving his tank top strap out of the way is enough to make him flinch slightly. however, mark can see his body visibly relax as the ice is pressed directly onto his skin. ethan hangs his head and slumps over the sink. mark does his best to keep the ice in the right place as he moves. 

"thank you for this," it's said into ethan's chest, mumbled. "i didn't really know what to do once they left me alone." 

mark just looks at him, at his closed eyes and the small frown on his lips. the tightness in his chest is back.

"it's nothing man," he readjusts the ice pack, making sure it covers the entire bruise. "i wasn't just going to leave you out there. it's the least i could do." 

ethan turns his head to look at him directly and nods, then closes his eyes again. mark swears there's a smile on his lips.

it's back to that unnerving silence. mark doesn't know what to do with silence. there's normally always something going on. something to occupy him, his hands, his mind. it's hard to do anything but start to fidget where he stands. he feels like he's unraveling. 

"mark." 

"yeah." 

they don't look at each other, mark stares at the bag of ice and ethan is staring down at the sink. 

"have you ever been in a fight?" if the sink was running, mark wouldn't have been able to hear him, ethan spoke so softly. 

mark thought about it, whether any of those incidents could be considered a fight. he's hit people before, a fist to a jaw or in a stomach. but it never went further than one hit before mark walked away. 

"i've-" mark was careful with his wording. "i've hit people before, if that's what you mean." he looks up at ethan, wondering where this new conversation was going. 

ethan was still looking at the sink, glaring at it like it was the one to do this to him. mark has seen a similar look on him during a particularly hard word problem before. though this time, it's lined with red and purple.

"do you think-," ethan hesitates, begins to start over as he looks into the mirror at mark. "do you think you could teach me?" 

it's what he expected. if he was the one to get jumped in the back of the school, he'd want to know how to fight back too. give them the same they doled out.

"ethan-" 

"nevermind, i-" ethan straightens up, pulling back from the sink, suddenly, and letting his hand fall from his face. "just forget it. it'd be stupid, sorry for asking." 

in ethan's haste to back away from mark, the ice pack had fallen from mark's hands. a clatter came from the cubes as they hit the floor. 

"ethan," mark bent down to pick up the bag, taking a step closer towards the other. "i don't know how to fight people. i've thrown a few punches, but," he looks down at the ice, it's half-melted, dripping onto his shoes. "i wouldn't know how to help." 

ethan's playing with another sink, turning it on and off every few seconds. his back is turned towards mark, the bruise on his shoulder creeps over his shoulder, the green edges sliding over his back. he wonders if the kid feels as off-kilter as he does. probably does, even more, considering. 

he dumps the ice in a sink, not sure what to say. the stretches of silence between the two of them have been unusual this afternoon. they always know how to bounce off each other, able to have something to say. they aren't that close, but mark's never felt awkward like this around ethan before. something has shifted. 

"you don't have to stay, you know," mark snaps his head toward ethan's voice. the boy is still playing with the sink, refusing to look at anything else. "i can call my dad to pick me up, you don't have to stay." 

the words cut into something mark wasn't aware was there. like the soft, hurt tone was breaking something. even with the awkwardness, mark knows he doesn't want to leave ethan alone right now. 

"i uh-," mark glances down the hallway, looking at the door to the back of the school. he knows their stuff is back at his locker. there's shit around the floor he needs to put away. "i can drive you home if you want. you live on preston right?" 

"uh yeah, but," ethan glances up at mark, no longer swinging the sink handle and instead, rubbing his thumb over the rag in his hands. "you don't have to. it's okay." 

"i want to." the glimmer of normalcy is back. "it's on my way home, come on." he heads back towards his locker, hoping that the other is following. 

-

mark doesn't really know what he's doing half the time. he makes decisions and then has to think about them later. his brain just says go and he goes. the specifics of this afternoon might have been unknown but as soon as he saw ethan curled up on the concrete, he knew he was going to help. 

mark doesn't know what he's doing half the time. and often that bleeds into his emotions too. his body does things and propels his being forward through the day and sometimes his brain is still back in bed getting ready to brush his teeth. 

right now, he still feels back outside. looking at ethan brings rushes of anger before he has any say in the matter, making him spacy. he comes back to this twisted feeling in his gut, making him hyper-aware of the situation and what everything means. how close they were in the locker room, how pressing ice into ethan's bruise made his head spin. how he kept fucking looking at ethan toy with his split lip.

things always spin when he doesn't know what he's doing. 

driving ethan home feels like riding the teacups at disneyland.

mark had put everything in his locker while ethan stood next to his bag with the ice bag to his face. he made another attempt to refuse mark's offer, saying his dad only worked a few minutes away, that it wasn't a big deal that he'd missed the late bus. 

mark gave him a stern look while slinging his duffel over his shoulder. he heard ethan follow him down the hallways shortly afterward.

the walk to the car had been in silence. their shoulders brushing as they walked down the long walkway to mark's car. ethan walked a little slow, his knees probably cramping and creaking from the fight. mark made an effort to stay beside him as they walked. 

their bags were thrown into the backseat. mark started the car as ethan did something on his phone outside. the minute alone let mark breathe. the spinning feeling was starting to become worse. 

a slam of the passenger side door and mark backed out of the parking spot and headed to the main road. the radio is on, some kind of rock channel. even at its low volume, it felt like it was pounding between his ears. 

ethan was silent next to him. looking over, his head was against the window, the ice against his eye blocking his face. he had his feet pulled up onto the seat, his knees to his chest.

if it was any other time, mark would have told him off for dirtying his car.

he looked back at the road. the sun was low in the sky, making everything a peach color, clouds a light purple. it made everything feel out of place. like some scene in a movie meant for everything to come to a close.

mark can't help but feel like everything was just started. doors open with no time to enter them. everything felt off, like there was an itch under his skin that he wasn't able to scratch. the spinning turned into lilting, almost tipping him over. 

"im sorry-," mark cleared his throat through a stutter. "im sorry this happened, man." a beat of silence. silence, mark hated it. mostly he didn't mind it, room for his mind to wander and run, but right now it felt suffocating.

"it's okay." small, quiet. ethan didn't shift from his position. his breath was against the window, fogging the glass. even with the heat outside, he managed to draw a face in the condensation. 

the response made mark bite his lip. screw up his face and pretend like he wasn't on fire. 

"i mean it's not, but," he saw ethan curl up tighter. "i'm still sorry." he really was, mark was sorry. he feels like he's somehow responsible. mark doesn't spend a lot of time with ethan outside of tutoring, mostly pays him no mind unless it involves math. maybe if he had paid more attention, ethan wouldn't be sitting there with bruises on his body.

"thanks." the tight-lipped reply was enough for mark to drop it. as much as his brain said to keep going, he knew when to stop. ethans discomfort was evident in his tone. the need to avoid what was happening seeped through the one-word reply. mark could tell his walls were rising and he didn't want to drive a sledgehammer into their small relationship. 

the houses they passed didn't really register to mark as he again thought back to when all of this started. again the image of ethan's tear-stained face comes to his mind, the blood on his chin and the cuts on his knees. he gripped the steering wheel, turning his knuckles white.

he almost missed ethan's street, he wasn't paying attention. 

he kept thinking about it, he's spent the entire afternoon with the bloodied bruised image of the kid next to him never leaving his mind. every time he saw the kid curled up in the corner by the door, he felt anger rise. it made him want to head back to the gym and do something about it. 

it felt like a cycle born to repeat itself. the rise of anger and then everything sizzling out once he really looked at him. he felt deflated every time.

"it's the brown one with the red car in the driveway." ethan was pointing up ahead, mark had almost driven past it. he was in his own head.

mark pulled up in front of the mailbox. the car squealed as he yanked the parking brake on. he watched as ethan got out of the car. the door slamming with so much force he shook the car. as the backseat door opened, the clanking of the ice bag as ethan adjusted his bag was loud to mark's ears.

he stared straight, only looking back at ethan when he was given a small 'bye'. the door closed behind the beaten boy and mark was left alone. 

the lilting had turned into a full-on tornado. he didn't know what to say to him, so he said nothing. everything felt so off. the two of them had never had a quieter interaction, all their tutoring sessions full of smart quips and words about logarithms. mark felt small, useless, like he couldn't do anything to help. he wanted to help.

ethan was almost at his door. bag over his shoulder and ice bag swinging by his side. mark rolled down the passenger side window and leaned over the console. 

"wait, ethan!" the kid turned around abruptly, a little stunned. mark waved him back over to the car. 

he waited, toying with the seat belt lock while ethan walked back. he left his bag by the door. 

"mark?" he leaned against the window, his head just inside of the car. his eye was a little swollen, his lip just about scabbed over. 

"i can help." that was dumb, he sounds like a five-year-old. the look ethan is giving him says he thinks marks gone crazy. "i mean- i can help you fight back, i do wrestling." 

ethan still looked lost, his eyebrows screwing up. he scratches his arm waiting for mark to say something that makes sense. 

"i uh, i can't really teach you how to hit people," mark rubs the back of his neck, suddenly nervous. "but i can teach you how to get away from them and like, make them want to leave you alone?" god, he feels  
ridiculous.

ethan was smiling though, a small one. so he must have said something right. 

"you said you wanted to learn how to fight," mark leans back into his own side of the car. "i can help." 

they just stare at each other. the setting sun made a halo around ethan's house, rays hitting the car in the driveway and bouncing against the unblemished side of ethan's face. his smile had grown. that weird feeling in mark's gut had returned, his chest tightening against his will. he felt like he was melting. 

"yeah, okay." ethan kept looking at him. smiling. if he kept at it, his lip would split again. "can we talk about it at tutoring on tuesday though? my shoulder is starting to ache." he reached up to hold the bruised skin, digging his fingertips into the red outline by his collar. 

"oh yeah, yeah of course." he straightened in his seat, brushing hair out of his face. he felt heat rise to his face, his nerves kicked up a notch when ethan gave him a small laugh. "tuesday, tutoring." 

"bye mark." ethan's lip had definitely split again, his tongue darted out as he straightened up. 

"bye ethan." mark sat there and watched him walk back to his house. he gave a wave when ethan turned and gave him another smile. 

the door shut and mark was left looking at a house in a neighborhood he didn't live in. he looked back through the windshield. the sky had turned a hazy blue as the sun went behind trees. his forehead hit the wheel as he tilted forward.

the radio was playing some song he'd never heard off and his window was still rolled down. he let out a very large breath as he started the drive home.

ethan was okay and he had helped him be okay. 

his mom asked him where he was when he got home and all he could say was that he was doing something important for a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at moriiweather :) come say hi and drop a message in my ask box


End file.
